The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
==============================================
V.I. Lenin

Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/tasks/index.htm


============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
------------------------------------------------------------


(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The moment of history through which Russia is now passing is
marked by the following main characteristics:


------------------------------------------------------------
THE CLASS CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTLON THAT HAS TAKEN PLACE
------------------------------------------------------------


1. The old tsarist power, which represented only a handful of
feudalist landowners who commanded the entire state machinery
(the army, the police, and the bureaucracy), has been
overthrown and removed, but not completely destroyed. The
monarchy has not been formally abolished; the Romanov gang
continues to hatch monarchist intrigues. The vast landed
possessions of the feudalist squirearchy have not been
abolished.

2. State power in Russia has passed into the hands of a new class , namely, the bourgeoisie and landowners who
had become bourgeois. To this extent the
bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia is completed.

Having come to power, the bourgeoisie has formed a bloc (an
alliance) with the overt monarchists, who are notorious for
their exceptionally ardent support of Nicholas the Bloody and
Stolypin the Hangman in 1906-14 (Guchkov and other politicians
to the right of the Cadets [1] ).
The new bourgeois government of Lvov and Co. has attempted and
has begun to negotiate with the Romanovs for the restoration of
the monarchy in Russia. Behind a screen of revolutionary
phrases, this government is appointing partisans of the old
regime to key positions. It is striving to reform the whole
machinery of state (the army, the police, and the bureaucracy)
as little as possible, and has turned it over to the
bourgeoisie. The new government has already begun to hinder in
every way the revolutionary initiative of mass action and the
seizure of power by the people from below , which is the sole guarantee of the real success of the revolution.

Up to now this government has not even fixed a date for the
convocation of the Constituent Assembly. It is not laying a
finger on the landed estates, which form the material foundation
of feudal tsarism. This government does not even contemplate
starting an investigation into, and making public, the
activities of the monopolist financial organisations, the big
banks, the syndicates and cartels of the capitalists, etc., or
instituting control over them.

The key positions, the decisive ministerial posts in the new
government (the Ministry of the Interior and the War Ministry,
i.e., the command over the army, the police, the bureaucracy –
the entire apparatus for oppressing the people) are held by
outright monarchists and supporters of the system of big landed
estates. The Cadets, those day-old republicans, republicans
against their own will, have been assigned minor posts, having
no direct relation to the command over the people or to
the apparatus of state power. A. Kerensky, a Trudovik [2] and “would-be socialist”, has no function whatsoever, except to
lull the vigilance and attention of the people with sonorous
phrases.

For all these reasons, the new bourgeois government does not
deserve the confidence of the proletariat even in the sphere of
internal policy, and no support of this government by the
proletariat is admissible.


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Notes
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[1] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[2] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

 |  | | | THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
------------------------------------------------------------


(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


------------------------------------------------------------
THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT
------------------------------------------------------------


3. In the field of foreign policy, which has now been brought to
the forefront by objective circumstances, the new government
is a government for the continuation of the imperialist war,
a war that is being waged in alliance with the imperialist
powers—Britain, France, and others—for division of the
capitalist spoils and for subjugating small and weak
nations.

Subordinated to the interests of Russian capitalism and its
powerful protector and master—Anglo-French imperialist
capitalism, the wealthiest in the world, the new government, notwithstanding the wishes expressed in no uncertain fashion on
behalf of the obvious majority of the peoples of Russia through
the Soviet of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Deputies, has taken no real
steps to put an end to the slaughter of peoples for the
interests of the capitalists. It has not even published the
secret treaties of an obviously predatory character (for the
partition of Persia, the plunder of China, the plunder of
Turkey, the partition of Austria, the annexation of Eastern
Prussia, the annexation of the German colonies, etc.), which, as
everybody knows, bind Russia to Anglo-French predatory
imperialist capital. It has confirmed these treaties
concluded by tsarism, which for centuries robbed and oppressed
more nations than other tyrants and despots, and which not only
oppressed, but also disgraced and demoralised the Great-Russian
nation by making it an executioner of other nations.

The new government has confirmed these shameful depredatory
treaties and has not proposed an immediate armistice to all the
belligerent nations, in spite of the clearly expressed demand of
the majority of the peoples of Russia, voiced through the
Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. It has evaded the
issue with the help of solemn, sonorous, bombastic, but
absolutely empty declarations and phrases, which, in the mouths
of bourgeois diplomats, have always served, and still serve, to
deceive the trustful and naïve masses of the oppressed
people.

4. Not only, therefore, is the new government unworthy of the
slightest confidence in the field of foreign policy, but to
go on demanding that it should proclaim the will of the
peoples of Russia for peace, that it should renounce
annexations, and so on and so forth, is in practice merely to
deceive the people, to inspire them with false hopes and to
retard the clarification of their minds. It is indirectly to
reconcile them to the continuation of a war the true social
character of which is determined not by pious wishes, but by
the class character of the government that wages the war, by
the connection between the class represented by this
government and the imperialist finance capital of Russia,
Britain, France, etc., by the real and actual
policy which that class is pursuing.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
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 | THE CLASS CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTLON THAT HAS TAKEN PLACE | | | THE PECULIAR NATURE OF THE DUAL POWER AND ITS CLASS SIGNIFICANCE |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
------------------------------------------------------------


(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


------------------------------------------------------------
THE PECULIAR NATURE OF THE DUAL POWER

AND ITS CLASS SIGNIFICANCE
------------------------------------------------------------


5. The main feature of our revolution, a feature that most
imperatively demands thoughtful consideration, is the dual power which arose in the very first days after
the triumph of the revolution.

This dual power is evident in the existence of two governments: one is the main, the real, the actual
government of the bourgeoisie, the “Provisional Government” of
Lvov and Co., which holds in its hands all the organs of power;
the other is a supplementary and parallel government, a
“controlling” government in the shape of the Petrograd Soviet of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, which holds no organs of state
power, but directly rests on the support of an obvious and
indisputable majority of the people, on the armed workers and
soldiers.

The class origin and the class significance of this dual power
is the following: the Russian revolution of March 1917 not only
swept away the whole tsarist monarchy, not only transferred the
entire power to the bourgeoisie, but also moved close
towards a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the
proletariat and the peasantry. The Petrograd and the other, the
local, Soviets constitute precisely such a dictatorship (that
is, a power resting not on the law but directly on the force of
armed masses of the population), a dictatorship precisely of the
above-mentioned classes.

6. The second highly important feature of the Russian revolution
is the fact that the Petrograd Soviet of Soldiers’ and
Workers’ Deputies, which, as everything goes to show, enjoys
the confidence of most of the local Soviets, is voluntarily transferring state power to the
bourgeoisie and its Provisional Government, is
voluntarily ceding supremacy to the latter, having
entered into an agreement to support it, and is limiting its
own role to that of an observer, a supervisor of the
convocation of the Constituent Assembly (the date for which
has not even been announced as yet by the Provisional
Government).

This remarkable feature, unparalleled in history in such a form,
has led to the interlocking of two dictatorships: the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (for the government of Lvov and
Co. is a dictatorship, i.e., a power based not on the law, not
on the previously expressed will of the people, but on seizure
by force, accomplished by a definite class, namely, the
bourgeoisie) and the dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry (the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies).

There is not the slightest doubt that such an “interlocking”
cannot last long. Two powers cannot exist in a
state. One of them is bound to pass away; and the entire Russian
bourgeoisie is already trying its hardest everywhere and in
every way to keep out and weaken the Soviets, to reduce them to
nought, and to establish the undivided power of the
bourgeoisie.

The dual power merely expresses a transitional phase in
the revolution’s development, when it has gone farther than the
ordinary bourgeois-democratic revolution, but has not yet
reached a “pure” dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry.

The class significance (and the class explanation) of this
transitional and unstable situation is this: like all
revolutions, our revolution required the greatest heroism and
self-sacrifice on the part of the people for the struggle
against tsarism; it also immediately drew unprecedentedly vast numbers of ordinary citizens into the movement.

From the point of view of science and practical politics, one of
the chief symptoms of every real revolution is the
unusually rapid, sudden, and abrupt increase in the number of
“ordinary citizens” who begin to participate actively,
independently and effectively in political life and in the organisation of the state.

Such is the case in Russia. Russia at present is
seething. Millions and tens of millions of people, who had been
politically dormant for ten years and politically crushed by the
terrible oppression of tsarism and by inhuman toil for the
landowners and capitalists, have awakened and taken
eagerly to politics. And who are these millions and tens of
millions? For the most part small proprietors, petty bourgeois,
people standing midway between the capitalists and the
wage-workers Russia is the most petty-bourgeois of all European
countries.

A gigantic petty-bourgeois wave has swept over everything and
overwhelmed the class-conscious proletariat, not only by force
of numbers but also ideologically; that is, it has infected and
imbued very wide circles of workers with the petty-bourgeois
political outlook.

The petty bourgeoisie are in real life dependent upon the
bourgeoisie, for they live like masters and not like
proletarians (from the point of view of their place in
social production ) and follow the bourgeoisie in their
outlook.

An attitude of unreasoning trust in the capitalists—the worst
foes of peace and socialism—characterises the politics of the popular masses in Russia at the present moment; this is
the fruit that has grown with revolutionary rapidity on
the social and economic soil of the most petty-bourgeois of all
European countries. This is the class basis for the
“ agreement ” between the Provisional Government and the
Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies (I emphasise that I am
referring not so much to the formal agreement as to actual
support , a tacit agreement, the surrender of power inspired
by unreasoning trust), an agreement which has given the Guchkovs
a fat piece—real power—and the Soviet merely promises and
honours (for the time being), flattery, phrases, assurances, and
the bowings and scrapings of the Kerenskys.

On the other side we have the inadequate numerical strength of
the proletariat in Russia and its insufficient
class-consciousness and organisation.

All the Narodnik parties, including the
Socialist-Revolutionaries, have always been
petty-bourgeois. This is also true of the party of the
Organising Committee (Chkheidze, Tsereteli, etc.). The non-party
revolutionaries (Steklov and others) have similarly yielded to
the tide, or have not been able to stand up to it, have not had
the time to do it.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


 | THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT | | | THE PECULIAR NATURE OF THE TACTICS WHICH FOLLOW FROM THE ABOVE |

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Works
		  Index|Volume 24 | | | Collected Works|L.I.A. Index


============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
------------------------------------------------------------


(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


------------------------------------------------------------
THE PECULIAR NATURE OF THE TACTICS

WHICH FOLLOW FROM THE ABOVE
------------------------------------------------------------


7. For the Marxist, who must reckon with objective facts, with
the masses and classes, and not with individuals and so on,
the peculiar nature of the actual situation as described
above must determine the peculiar nature of the tactics for
the present moment.

This peculiarity of the situation calls, in the first place, for
the “pouring of vinegar and bile into the sweet water of
revolutionary-democratic phraseology” (as my fellow member on
the Central Committee of our Party, Teodorovich, so aptly put it
at yesterday’s session of the All-Russia Congress of Railwaymen
in Petrograd). Our work must be one of criticism, of explaining the mistakes of the petty-bourgeois
Socialist-Revolutionary and Social-Democratic parties, of
preparing and welding the elements of a consciously proletarian, Communist Party, and of curing the proletariat of the “general” petty-bourgeois
intoxication.

This seems to be “nothing more” than propaganda work,
but in reality it is most practical revolutionary work;
for there is no advancing a revolution that has come to a
standstill, that has choked itself with phrases, and that keeps
“marking time”, not because of external obstacles, not because of the violence of the bourgeoisie (Guchkov
is still only threatening to employ violence against the soldier
mass), but because of the unreasoning trust of the
people.

Only by overcoming this unreasoning trust (and we can and should
overcome it only ideologically, by comradely persuasion, by
pointing to the lessons of experience ) can we set
ourselves free from the prevailing orgy of revolutionary
phrase-mongering and really stimulate the consciousness both
of the proletariat and of the mass in general, as well as their
bold and determined initiative in the localities – the
independent realisation, development and consolidation of
liberties, democracy, and the principle of people’s ownership of
all the land.

8. The world-wide experience of bourgeois and landowner
governments has evolved two methods of keeping the
people in subjection. The first is violence. Nicholas Romanov
I, nicknamed Nicholas of the Big Stick, and Nicholas II, the
Bloody, demonstrated to the Russian people the maximum of
what can and cannot he done in the way of these hangmen’s
practices. But there is another method, best developed by the
British and French bourgeoisie, who “learned their lesson” in
a series of great revolutions and revolutionary movements of
the masses. It is the method of deception, flattery, fine
phrases, promises by the million, petty sops, and concessions
of the unessential while retaining the essential.

The peculiar feature of the present situation in Russia is the
transition at a dizzy speed from the first method to the second,
from violent oppression of the people to flattering and
deceiving the people by promises. Vaska the Cat listens, but
goes on
eating. [1] Milyukov and Guchkov are holding power,
they are protecting the profits of the capitalists, conducting
an imperialist war in the interests of Russian and Anglo-French
capital, and trying to get away with promises, declamation and
bombastic statements in reply to the speeches of “cooks” like
Chkheidze, Tsereteli and Steklov, who threaten, exhort, conjure,
beseech, demand and proclaim. . . . Vaska the Cat listens, but
goes on eating.

But from day to day trustful lack of reasoning and unreasoning
trust will be falling away, especially among the proletarians
and poor peasants, who are being taught by experience
(by their social and economic position) to distrust the
capitalists.

The leaders of the petty bourgeoisie “must” teach the people to
trust the bourgeoisie. The proletarians must teach the people to
distrust the bourgeoisie.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

 | THE PECULIAR NATURE OF THE DUAL POWER AND ITS CLASS SIGNIFICANCE | | | REVOLUTIONARY DEFENCISM AND ITS CLASS SIGNIFICANCE |

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		  backwardContentsforward >
Works
		  Index|Volume 24 | | | Collected Works|L.I.A. Index


============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
------------------------------------------------------------


(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


------------------------------------------------------------
REVOLUTIONARY DEFENCISM

AND ITS CLASS SIGNIFICANCE
------------------------------------------------------------


9. Revolutionary defencism must be regarded as the most
important, the most striking manifestation of the
petty-bourgeois wave that has swept over “nearly
everything”. It is the worst enemy of the further progress
and success of the Russian revolution.

Those who have yielded on this point and have been unable to
extricate themselves are lost to the revolution. But the masses
yield in a different way from the leaders, and they extricate
themselves differently , by a different course of
development, by different means.

Revolutionary defencism is, on the one hand, a result of the
deception of the masses by the bourgeoisie, a result of the
trustful lack of reasoning on the part of the peasants and a
section of the workers; it is, on the other, an expression of
the interests and point of view of the small proprietor, who is
to some extent interested in annexations and bank profits, and
who “sacredly” guards the traditions of tsarism, which
demoralised the Great Russians by making them do a hangman’s
work against the other peoples.

The bourgeoisie deceives the people by working on their noble
pride in the revolution and by pretending that the social
and political character of the war, as far as Russia is
concerned, underwent a change because of this stage of the
revolution, because of the substitution of the near republic of
Guchkov and Milyukov for the tsarist monarchy. And the people
believed it—for a time—largely owing to age-old
prejudices, which made them look upon the other peoples of
Russia, i.e., the non-Great Russians, as something in the nature
of a property and private estate of the Great Russians. This
vile demoralisation of the Great Russian people by tsarism which
taught them to regard the other peoples as something inferior,
something belonging “by right” to Great Russia, could not
disappear instantly.

What is required of us is the ability to explain to the
masses that the social and political character of the war is
determined not by the “good will” of individuals or groups, or
even of nations, but by the position of the class which
conducts the war, by the class policy of which the war
is a continuation, by the ties of capital, which is the
dominant economic force in modern society, by the imperialist character of international capital, by
Russia’s dependence in finance, banking and diplomacy upon
Britain, France, and so on. To explain this skilfully in a way
the people would understand is not easy ; none of us
would be able to do it at once without committing errors.

But this, and only this, must be the aim or, rather, the message
of our propaganda. The slightest concession to revolutionary
defencism is a betrayal of socialism , a complete
renunciation of internationalism , no matter by what
fine phrases and “practical” considerations it may be
justified.

The slogan “Down with the War!” is, of course, correct. But it
fails to take into account the specific nature of the tasks of
the present moment and the necessity of approaching the
broad mass of the people in a different way . It reminds
me of the slogan “Down with the Tsar!” with which the
inexperienced agitator of the “good old days” went simply and
directly to the countryside—and got a beating for his
pains. The mass believers in revolutionary defencism are honest , not in the personal, but in the class sense,
i.e., they belong to classes (workers and the peasant
poor) which in actual fact have nothing to gain from
annexations and the subjugation of other peoples. This is
nothing like the bourgeois and the “intellectual” fraternity,
who know very well that you cannot renounce annexations
without renouncing the rule of capital, and who unscrupulously
deceive the people with fine phrases, with unlimited promises
and endless assurances.

The rank-and-file believer in defencism regards the matter in
the simple way of the man in the street: “I don’t want
annexations, but the Germans are ’going for’ me ,
therefore I’m defending a just cause and not any kind of
imperialist interests at all.” To a man like this it must be
explained again and again that it is not a question of his
personal wishes, but of mass, class , political
relations and conditions, of the connection between the war and
the interests of capital and the international network of banks,
and so forth. Only such a struggle against defencism will be
serious and will promise success—perhaps not a very rapid
success, but one that will be real and enduring.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


 | THE PECULIAR NATURE OF THE TACTICS WHICH FOLLOW FROM THE ABOVE | | | HOW CAN THE WAR BE ENDED? |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
------------------------------------------------------------


(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


------------------------------------------------------------
HOW CAN THE WAR BE ENDED?
------------------------------------------------------------


10. The war cannot be ended “at will”. It cannot be ended by the
decision of one of the belligerents. It cannot be ended by
“sticking your bayonet into the ground”, as one soldier, a
defencist, expressed it.

The war cannot be ended by an “agreement” among the socialists
of the various countries, by the “action” of the proletarians of
all countries, by the “will” of the peoples, and so forth. All
the phrases of this kind, which fill the articles of the
defencist, semi-defencist, and semi-internationalist papers as
well as innumerable resolutions, appeals, manifestos, and the
resolutions of the Soviet of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Deputies –
all such phrases are nothing but idle, innocent and pious wishes
of the petty bourgeois. There is nothing more harmful than
phrases like “ascertaining the will of the peoples for peace”,
like the sequence of revolutionary actions of the
proletariat (after the Russian proletariat comes the turn of the
German), etc. All this is Blancism, fond dreams, a playing at
“political campaigning”, and in reality just a repetition of the
fable of Vaska the Cat.

The war is not a product of the evil will of rapacious
capitalists, although it is undoubtedly being fought only in their interests and they alone are being
enriched by it. The war is a product of half a century of
development of world capitalism and of its billions of threads
and connections. It is impossible to slip out of the
imperialist war and achieve a democratic, non-coercive peace
without overthrowing the power of capital and transferring state
power to another class, the proletariat.

The Russian revolution of February-March 1917 was the beginning
of the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil
war. This revolution took the first step towards ending
the war; but it requires a second step, namely, the
transfer of state power to the proletariat, to make the end of
the war a certainty . This will be the beginning of a
“break-through” on a world-wide scale, a break-through in the
front of capitalist interests; and only by breaking through this front can the proletariat save mankind from
the horrors of war and endow it with the blessings of peace.

It is directly to such a “break-through” in the front of
capitalism that the Russian revolution has already brought the Russian proletariat by creating the
Soviets of Workers’ Deputies.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


 | REVOLUTIONARY DEFENCISM AND ITS CLASS SIGNIFICANCE | | | A NEW TYPE OF STATE EMERGING FROM OUR REVOLUTION |

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Works
		  Index|Volume 24 | | | Collected Works|L.I.A. Index


============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
------------------------------------------------------------


(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


------------------------------------------------------------
A NEW TYPE OF STATE

EMERGING FROM OUR REVOLUTION
------------------------------------------------------------


11. The Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, Peasants’ and other
Deputies are not understood, not only in the sense that
their class significance, their role in the Russian revolution, is not clear to the
majority. They are not understood also in the sense that
they constitute a new form or rather a new type of
state.

The most perfect, the most advanced type of bourgeois state is
the parliamentary democratic republic : power is vested
in parliament; the state machine, the apparatus and organ of
administration, is of the customary kind: the standing army, the
police, and the bureaucracy—which in practice is
undisplaceable, is privileged and stands above the
people.

Since the end of the nineteenth century, however, revolutionary
epochs have advanced a higher type of democratic state,
a state which in certain respects, as Engels put it, ceases to
be a state, is “no longer a state in the proper sense of the
word”. [1] This is a state of the Paris Commune type, one in which a
standing army and police divorced from the people are replaced by the direct arming of the people
themselves. It is this feature that constitutes the very
essence of the Commune, which has been so misrepresented and
slandered by the bourgeois writers, and to which has been
erroneously ascribed, among other things, the intention of
immediately “introducing” socialism.

This is the type of state which the Russian revolution began to create in 1905 and in 1917. A Republic of
Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, Peasants’, and other Deputies,
united in an All-Russia Constituent Assembly of people’s
representatives or in a Council of Soviets, etc., is what is already being realised in our country now, at this
juncture. It is being realised by the initiative of the nation’s
millions, who are creating a democracy on their own, in
their own way without waiting until the Cadet professors
draft their legislative bills for a parliamentary bourgeois
republic, or until the pedants and routine-worshippers of
petty-bourgeois “Social-Democracy”, like Mr. Plekhanov or
Kautsky, stop distorting the Marxist teaching on the state.

Marxism differs from anarchism in that it recognises the need for a state and for state power in the period of
revolution in general, and in the period of transition from
capitalism to socialism in particular.

Marxism differs from the petty-bourgeois, opportunist
“Social-Democratism” of Plekhanov, Kautsky and Co. in that it
recognises that what is required during these two periods is not a state of the usual parliamentary bourgeois
republican type, but a state of the Paris Commune type.

The main distinctions between a state of the latter type and the
old state are as follows.

It is quite easy (as history proves) to revert from a
parliamentary bourgeois republic to a monarchy, for all the
machinery of oppression—the army, the police, and the
bureaucracy—is left intact. The Commune and the Soviet smash that machinery and do away with it.

The parliamentary bourgeois republic hampers and stifles the
independent political life of the masses their direct
participation in the democratic organisation of the life
of the state from the bottom up. The opposite is the case with
the Soviets.

The latter reproduce the type of state which was being evolved
by the Paris Commune and which Marx described as “the political
form at last discovered under which to work out the economic
emancipation of
labour”. [2]

We are usually told that the Russian people are not yet prepared
for the “introduction” of the Commune. This was the argument of
the serf-owners when they claimed that the peasants were not
prepared for emancipation. The Commune, i.e., the Soviets, does
not “introduce”, does not intend to “introduce”, and must not
introduce any reforms which have not absolutely matured
both in economic reality and in the minds of the overwhelming
majority of the people. The deeper the economic collapse and the
crisis produced by the war, the more urgent becomes the need for
the most perfect political form, which will facilitate the healing of the terrible wounds inflicted
on mankind by the war. The less the organisational experience of
the Russian people, the more resolutely must we proceed to organisational development by the people
themselves and not merely by the bourgeois politicians and
“well-placed” bureaucrats.

The sooner we shed the old prejudices of pseudo-Marxism, a
Marxism falsified by Plekhanov, Kautsky and Co., the more
actively we set about helping the people to organise Soviets of
Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies everywhere and immediately, and
helping the latter to take life in its entirety under
their control, and the longer Lvov and Co. delay the convocation
of the Constituent Assembly, the easier will it be for the
people (through the medium of the Constituent Assembly, or
independently of it, if Lvov delays its convocation too long) to
cast their decision in favour of a republic of Soviets of
Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. Errors in the new work of
organisational development by the people themselves are at first
inevitable; but it is better to make mistakes and go forward
than to wait until the professors of law summoned by
Mr. Lvov draft their laws for the convocation of the Constituent
Assembly, for the perpetuation of the parliamentary bourgeois
republic and for the strangling of the Soviets of Workers’ and
Peasants’ Deputies.

If we organise ourselves and conduct our propaganda skilfully,
not only the proletarians, but nine-tenths of the peasants will
be opposed to the restoration of the police, will be opposed to
an undisplaceable and privileged bureaucracy and to an army
divorced from the people. And that is all the new type of state
stands for.

12. The substitution of a people’s militia for the police is a
reform that follows from the entire course of the revolution
and that is now being introduced in most parts of Russia. We
must explain to the people that in most of the bourgeois
revolutions of the usual type, this reform was always
extremely short-lived, and that the bourgeoisie—even the
most democratic and republican—restored the police of the
old, tsarist type, a police divorced from the people,
commanded by the bourgeoisie and capable of oppressing the
people in every way.

There is only one way to prevent the restoration of the
police, and that is to create a people’s militia and to fuse it
with the army (the standing army to be replaced by the arming of
the entire people). Service in this militia should extend to all
citizens of both sexes between the ages of fifteen and
sixty-five without exception, if these tentatively suggested age
limits may be taken as indicating the participation of
adolescents and old people. Capitalists must pay their workers,
servants, etc., for days devoted to public service in the
militia. Unless women are brought to take an independent part
not only in political life generally, but also in daily and
universal public service, it is no use talking about full and
stable democracy, let alone socialism. And such “police”
functions as care of the sick and of homeless children, food
inspection, etc., will never be satisfactorily discharged until
women are on an equal footing with men, not merely nominally but
in reality.

The tasks which the proletariat must put before the people in
order to safeguard, consolidate and develop the revolution are
prevention of the restoration of the police and enlistment of
the organisational forces of the entire people in forming a
people’s militia.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[2] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

 | HOW CAN THE WAR BE ENDED? | | | THE AGRARIAN AND NATIONAL PROGRAMMES |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
------------------------------------------------------------


(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


------------------------------------------------------------
THE AGRARIAN AND NATIONAL PROGRAMMES
------------------------------------------------------------


13. At the present moment we cannot say for certain whether a
mighty agrarian revolution will develop in the Russian
countryside in the near future. We cannot say exactly how
profound the class cleavage is among the peasants, which has
undoubtedly grown more profound of late as a division into
agricultural labourers, wage-workers and poor peasants
(“semi-proletarians”), on the one hand, and wealthy and
middle peasants (capitalists and petty capitalists), on the
other. Such questions will be, and can be, decided only by
experience.

Being the party of the proletariat, however, we are
unquestionably in duty bound not only immediately to advance an
agrarian (land) programme but also to advocate practical
measures which can be immediately realised in the interests of the peasant agrarian revolution in Russia.

We must demand the nationalisation of all the land,
i.e., that all the land in the state should become the property
of the central state power. This power must fix the size, etc.,
of the resettlement land fund, pass legislation for the
conservation of forests, for land improvement, etc., and
absolutely prohibit any middlemen to interpose themselves
between the owner of the land, i.e., the state, and the tenant,
i.e., the tiller (prohibit all subletting of land). However, the disposal of the land, the determination of the local
regulations governing ownership and tenure of land, must in
no case be placed in the hands of bureaucrats and officials, but
wholly and exclusively in the hands of the regional and local Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies.

In order to improve grain production techniques and increase
output, and in order to develop rational cultivation on a large
scale under public control, we must strive within the peasants’
committees to secure the transformation of every confiscated
landed estate into a large model farm controlled by the Soviet of Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies.

In order to counteract the petty-bourgeois phrase-mongering and
the policy prevailing among the Socialist-Revolutionaries,
particularly the idle talk about “subsistence” standards or
“labour” standards, “socialisation of the land”, etc., the party
of the proletariat must make it clear that small-scale farming
under commodity production cannot save mankind from poverty and
oppression.

Without necessarily splitting the Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies
at once, the party of the proletariat must explain the need for
organising separate Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies
and separate Soviets of deputies from the poor
(semi-proletarian) peasants, or, at least, for holding regular
separate conferences of deputies of this class status in
the shape of separate groups or parties within the general
Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies. Otherwise all the honeyed
petty-bourgeois talk of the
Narodniks [1] regarding the peasants in
general will serve as a shield for the deception of the
propertyless mass by the wealthy peasants, who are merely a
variety of capitalists.

To counteract the bourgeois-liberal or purely bureaucratic
sermons preached by many Socialist-Revolutionaries and Soviets
of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, who advise the peasants not
to seize the landed estates and not to start the agrarian reform
pending the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, the party
of the proletariat must urge the peasants to carry out the
agrarian reform at once on their own, and to confiscate the
landed estates immediately, upon the decisions of the peasants’
deputies in the localities.

At the same time, it is most important to insist on the
necessity of increasing food production for the soldiers
at the front and for the towns, and on the absolute
inadmissibility of causing any damage or injury to livestock,
implements, machinery, buildings, etc.

14. As regards the national question, the proletarian party
first of all must advocate the proclamation and immediate
realisation of complete freedom of secession from Russia for
all the nations and peoples who were oppressed by tsarism,
or who were forcibly joined to, or forcibly kept within the
boundaries of, the state, i.e., annexed.

All statements, declarations and manifestos concerning
renunciation of annexations that are not accompanied by the
realisation of the right of secession in practice, are nothing
but bourgeois deception of the people, or else pious
petty-bourgeois wishes.

The proletarian party strives to create as large a state as
possible, for this is to the advantage of the working people; it
strives to draw nations closer together, and
bring about their further fusion; but it desires to
achieve this aim not by violence, but exclusively through a free
fraternal union of the workers and the working people of all
nations.

The more democratic the Russian republic, and the more
successfully it organises itself into a Republic of Soviets of
Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, the more powerful will be the
force of voluntary attraction to such a republic on the
part of the working people of all nations.

Complete freedom of secession, the broadest local (and national)
autonomy, and elaborate guarantees of the rights of national
minorities—this is the programme of the revolutionary
proletariat.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] The term Narodniks is here used to denote the three
petty-bourgeois parties of the Narodnik trend, namely, the Trudoviks ,
the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and the Popular Socialists.

 | A NEW TYPE OF STATE EMERGING FROM OUR REVOLUTION | | | NATIONALISATION OF THE BANKS AND CAPITALIST SYNDICATES |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
------------------------------------------------------------


(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


------------------------------------------------------------
NATIONALISATION OF THE BANKS

AND CAPITALIST SYNDICATES
------------------------------------------------------------


15. Under no circumstances can the party of the proletariat set
itself the aim of “introducing” socialism in a country of
small peasants so long as the overwhelming majority of the
population has not come to realise the need for a socialist
revolution.

But only bourgeois sophists, hiding behind “near-Marxist”
catchwords, can deduce from this truth a justification of the
policy of postponing immediate revolutionary measures, the time
for which is fully ripe; measures which have
been frequently resorted to during the war by a number
of bourgeois states , and which are absolutely indispensable
in order to combat impending total economic disorganisation and
famine.

Such measures as the nationalisation of the land, of all the
banks and capitalist syndicates, or, at least, the immediate establishment of the control of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, etc., over them—measures which
do not in any way constitute the “introduction” of socialism—must
be absolutely insisted on, and, whenever possible, carried out in a
revolutionary way. Without such measures, which are only steps towards
socialism, and which are perfectly feasible economically, it will be
impossible to heal the wounds caused by the war and to avert the
impending collapse; and the party of the revolutionary proletariat
will never hesitate to lay hands on the fabulous profits of the
capitalists and bankers, who are enriching themselves on the war in a
particularly scandalous manner.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


 | THE AGRARIAN AND NATIONAL PROGRAMMES | | | THE SITUATION WITHIN THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
------------------------------------------------------------


(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


------------------------------------------------------------
THE SITUATION

WITHIN THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
------------------------------------------------------------


16. The international obligations of the working class of Russia
are precisely now coming to the forefront with particular
force.

Only lazy people do not swear by internationalism these
days. Even the chauvinist defencists, even Plekhanov and
Potresov, even Kerensky, call themselves internationalists. It
becomes the duty of the proletarian party all the more urgently,
therefore, to clearly, precisely and definitely counterpoise
internationalism in deed to internationalism in word.

Mere appeals to the workers of all countries, empty assurances
of devotion to internationalism, direct or indirect attempts to
fix a “sequence” of action by the revolutionary proletariat in
the various belligerent countries, laborious efforts to conclude
“agreements” between the socialists of the belligerent countries on the question of the revolutionary struggle, all the
fuss over the summoning of socialist congresses for the
purpose of a peace campaign, etc., etc.—no matter how
sincere the authors of such ideas, attempts, and plans may be –
amount, as far as their objective significance is
concerned, to mere phrase-mongering, and at best are
innocent and pious wishes, fit only to conceal the deception of the people by the chauvinists. The French social-chauvinists, who are the most adroit and
accomplished in methods of parliamentary hocus-pocus, have long
since broken the record for ranting and resonant pacifist and
internationalist phrases coupled with the incredibly
brazen betrayal of socialism and the International, the
acceptance of posts in governments which conduct the imperialist
war, the voting of credits or loans (as Chkheidze,
Skobelev, Tsereteli and Steklov have been doing recently in
Russia), opposition to the revolutionary struggle in their
own country , etc., etc.

Good people often forget the brutal and savage setting of the
imperialist world war. This setting does not tolerate phrases,
and mocks at innocent and pious wishes.

There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and
that is—working whole-heartedly for the development of the
revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one’s own country, and supporting (by propaganda,
sympathy, and material aid) this struggle , this, and only this, line, in every country without
exception.

Everything else is deception and Manilovism . [1]

During the two odd years of the war the international socialist
and working-class movement in every country has evolved
three trends. Whoever ignores reality and refuses to
recognise the existence of these three trends, to analyse them,
to fight consistently for the trend that is really
internationalist, is doomed to impotence, helplessness and
errors.

The three trends are:

1). The social-chauvinists ,
i.e., socialists in word and chauvinists in deed. People who
support “defence of the fatherland” in an imperialist war (and
above all in the present imperialist war).

These people are our class enemies. They have gone over
to the bourgeoisie.

They are the majority of the official leaders of the official
Social-Democratic parties in all countries— Plekhanov and Co. in Russia, the Scheidemanns in Germany, Renaudel, Guesde
and Sembat in France, Bissolati and Co. in Italy, Hyndman, the Fabians [2] and the Labourites (the leaders of the “Labour Party”) in
Britain, Branting and Co. in Sweden, Troelstra and his party in
Holland, Stauning and his party in Denmark, Victor Berger and
the other “defenders of the fatherland” in America, and so
forth.

2) The second trend, known as the “Centre”, consists of people
who vacillate between the social-chauvinists and the true
internationalists.

The “Centre” all vow and declare that they are Marxists and
internationalists, that they are for peace, for bringing every
kind of “pressure” to bear upon the governments, for “demanding”
in every way that their own government should “ascertain the
will of the people for peace”, that they are for all sorts of
peace campaigns, for peace without annexations, etc., etc. – and for peace with the social-chauvinists . The “Centre”
is for “unity”, the Centre is opposed to a split.

The “Centre” is a realm of honeyed petty-bourgeois phrases, of
internationalism in word and cowardly opportunism and fawning on
the social-chauvinists in deed.

The crux of the matter is that the “Centre” is not convinced of
the necessity for a revolution against one’s own government; it
does not preach revolution; it does not carry on a whole-hearted
revolutionary struggle; and in order to evade such a struggle it
resorts to the tritest ultra-“Marxist”-sounding excuses.

The social-chauvinists are our class enemies, they are bourgeois within the working-class movement. They
represent a stratum, or groups, or sections of the working class
which objectively have been bribed by the bourgeoisie
(by better wages, positions of honour, etc.), and which help their own bourgeoisie to plunder and oppress small and
weak peoples and to fight for the division of the
capitalist spoils.

The “Centre” consists of routine-worshippers, eroded by the
canker of legality, corrupted by the parliamentary atmosphere,
etc., bureaucrats accustomed to snug positions and soft
jobs. Historically and economically speaking, they are not a separate stratum but represent only a transition from a past phase of the working-class
movement—the phase between 1871 and 1914, which gave much
that is valuable to the proletariat, particularly in the
indispensable art of slow, sustained and systematic
organisational work on a large and very large scale—to a new phase that became objectively essential with
the outbreak of the first imperialist world war, which
inaugurated the era of social revolution.

The chief leader and spokesman of the “Centre” is Karl
Kautsky , the most outstanding authority in the Second
International (1889–1914), since August 1914 a model of utter
bankruptcy as a Marxist, the embodiment of unheard-of
spinelessness, and the most wretched vacillations and
betrayals. This “Centrist” trend includes Kautsky, Haase,
Ledebour and the so-called workers’
or labour
group [3] in the Reichstag; in France it includes
Longuet, Pressemane and the so-called minorities [4] (Mensheviks) in general; in Britain, Philip Snowden, Ramsay
MacDonald and many other leaders of the Independent
Labour
Party , [5] and some leaders of the British
Socialist
Party [6] ; Morris Hillquit and many others in the
United States; Turati, Tréves, Modigliani and others in
Italy; Robert Grimm and others in Switzerland; Victor Adler and
Co. in Austria; the party of the Organising Committee, Axelrod,
Martov, Chkheidze, Tsereteli and others in Russia, and so
forth.

Naturally, at times individuals unconsciously drift from the
social-chauvinist to the “Centrist” position, and vice
versa. Every Marxist knows that classes are distinct, even
though individuals may move freely from one class to another;
similarly, trends in political life are distinct in
spite of the fact that individuals may change freely from one
trend to another, and in spite of all attempts and efforts to amalgamate trends.

3) The third trend, that of the true internationalists, is best
represented by the “ Zimmerwald
Left ”. [7] (We reprint as a supplement its manifesto of
September 1915, to enable the reader to learn of the
inception of this trend at first hand.)

Its distinctive feature is its complete break with both
social-chauvinism and “Centrism”, and its gallant revolutionary
struggle against its own imperialist government and its own imperialist bourgeoisie. Its principle is: “Our
chief enemy is at home.” It wages a ruthless struggle against honeyed social-pacifist phrases (a social-pacifist is a
socialist in word and a bourgeois pacifist in deed; bourgeois
pacifists dream of an everlasting peace without the
overthrow of the yoke and domination of capital) and against all subterfuges employed to deny the possibility, or the
appropriateness, or the timeliness of a proletarian
revolutionary struggle and of a proletarian socialist revolution in connection with the present war.

The most outstanding representative of this trend in Germany is
the Spartacus group or the Internationale group , [8] to which Karl
Liebknecht belongs. Karl Liebknecht is a most celebrated
representative of this trend and of the new, and
genuine, proletarian International.

Karl Liebknecht called upon the workers and soldiers of Germany
to turn their guns against their own government. Karl Liebknecht did that openly from the rostrum of
parliament (the Reichstag). He then went to a demonstration in
Potsdamer Platz, one of the largest public squares in Berlin,
with illegally printed leaflets proclaiming the slogan “Down
with the Government!” He was arrested and sentenced to hard
labour . He is now serving his term in a German convict
prison, like hundreds, if not thousands, of other true German socialists who have been imprisoned for
their anti-war activities.

Karl Liebknecht in his speeches and letters mercilessly attacked
not only his own Plekhanovs and Potresovs
(Scheidemanns, Legiens, Davids and Co.), but also his own
Centrists, his own Chkheidzes and Tseretelis (Kautsky,
Haase, Ledebour and Co.).

Karl Liebknecht and his friend Otto Rühle, two out of one
hundred and ten deputies, violated discipline, destroyed the
“unity” with the “Centre” and the chauvinists, and went
against all of them . Liebknecht alone represents
socialism, the proletarian cause, the proletarian
revolution. All the rest of German Social-Democracy, to quote
the apt words of Rosa Luxemburg (also a member and one of the
leaders of the Spartacus group), is a “ stinking corpse ”.

Another group of true internationalists in Germany is that of
the Bremen paper Arbeiterpolitik.

Closest to the internationalists in deed are: in France, Loriot
and his friends (Bourderon and Merrheim have slid down to
social-pacifism), as well as the Frenchman Henri Guilbeaux, who
publishes in Geneva the journal Demain ; in Britain,
the newspaper The Trade Unionist, and some of the
members of the British Socialist Party and of the Independent
Labour Party (for instance, Russel Williams, who openly called
for a break with the leaders who have betrayed socialism), the Scottish socialist school teacher MacLean, who was sentenced to hard labour by
the bourgeois government of Britain for his revolutionary fight
against the war, and hundreds of British socialists who are in
jail for the same offence. They, and they alone, are
internationalists in deed. In the United States, the Socialist
Labour
Party [9] and those within the opportunist Socialist
Party [10] who in January 1917 began publication of the paper, The Internationalist ; in Holland, the Party of the
“ Tribunists ” [11] which publishes the paper De Tribune ( Pannekoek , Herman
Gorter, Wijnkoop, and Henriette Roland-Holst, who, although
Centrist at Zimmerwald, has now joined our ranks); in Sweden,
the Party of the Young, or the
Left[ Swedish
Social Democrats ], [12] led by Lindhagen, Ture Nerman, Carleson,
Strölm and Z. Hömlglund, who at Zimmerwald was
personally active in the organisation of the “Zimmerwald Left”,
and who is now in prison for his revolutionary fight against the
war; in Denmark, Trier and his friends who have left the now
purely bourgeois “Social-Democratic” Party of Denmark,
headed by the Minister Stauning; in Bulgaria, the
“ Tesnyaki ” [13] ;
in Italy, the nearest are Constantino Lazzari, secretary of the
party, and Serrati, editor of the central organ, Avanti! [14] ;
in Poland, Radek, Hanecki and other leaders of the
Social-Democrats united under the “Regional Executive”, and Rosa
Luxemburg, Tyszka and other leaders of the Social-Democrats
united under the “Chief Executive” [executive bodies of the Social democrats in the
Kingdom of Poland and Lithuana] [15] ; in Switzerland, those of
the Left who drew up the argument for the “referendum” (January
1917) in order to fight the social-chauvinists and the “Centre”
in their own country and who at the Zurich Cantonal
Socialist Convention, held at Töss on February 11, 1917,
moved a consistently revolutionary resolution against the war;
in Austria, the young Left-wing friends of Friedrich Adler, who
acted partly through the Karl Marx Club in Vienna, now closed by
the arch-reactionary Austrian Government, which is ruining Adler’s life for his heroic though ill-considered shooting at a
minister, and so on.

It is not a question of shades of opinion, which certainly exist
even among the Lefts. It is a question of trend . The
thing is that it is not easy to be an internationalist in deed
during a terrible imperialist war. Such people are few; but it
is on such people alone that the future of socialism depends; they alone are the leaders of the people, and not
their corrupters.

The distinction between the reformists and the revolutionaries,
among the Social-Democrats, and socialists generally, was
objectively bound to undergo a change under the conditions of
the imperialist war. Those who confine themselves to “demanding”
that the bourgeois governments should conclude peace or
“ascertain the will of the peoples for peace”, etc., are actually slipping into reforms. For, objectively, the problem of the war can be solved only in a revolutionary way.

There is no possibility of this war ending in a democratic,
non-coercive peace or of the people being relieved of the burden
of billions paid in interest to the capitalists, who
have made fortunes out of the war, except through a revolution
of the proletariat.

The most varied reforms can and must be demanded of the
bourgeois governments, but one cannot, without sinking to
Manilovism and reformism, demand that people and classes
entangled by the thousands of threads of imperialist capital
should tear those threads. And unless they are torn,
all talk of a war against war is idle and deceitful prattle.

The “Kautskyites”, the “Centre”, are revolutionaries in word and
reformists in deed, they are internationalists in word and
accomplices of the social-chauvinists in deed.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[2] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[3] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[4] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[5] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[6] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[7] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[8] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[9] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[10] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[11] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[12] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[13] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[14] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[15] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

 | NATIONALISATION OF THE BANKS AND CAPITALIST SYNDICATES | | | THE COLLAPSE OF THE ZIMMERWALD INTERNATIONAL.— THE NEED FOR FOUNDING A THIRD INTERNATIONAL |

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		  backwardContentsforward >
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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
------------------------------------------------------------


(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


------------------------------------------------------------
THE COLLAPSE

OF THE ZIMMERWALD INTERNATIONAL.—

THE NEED FOR FOUNDING A THIRD INTERNATIONAL
------------------------------------------------------------


17. From the very outset, the Zimmerwald International adopted a
vacillating, “Kautskyite”, “Centrist” position, which
immediately compelled the Zimmerwald Left to
dissociate itself, to separate itself from the rest, and to issue its own manifesto (published in Switzerland
in Russian, German and French).

The chief shortcoming of the Zimmerwald International, and the
cause of its collapse (for politically and
ideologically it has already collapsed), was its vacillation and
indecision on such a momentous issue of crucial practical significance as that of breaking completely with
social-chauvinism and the old social-chauvinist International,
headed by Vandervelde and Huysmans at The Hague (Holland), etc.

It is not as yet known in Russia that the Zinmerwald majority are nothing but Kautskyites . Yet this is the fun
damental fact, one which cannot be ignored, and which is now
generally known in Western Europe. Even that chauvinist, that
extreme German chauvinist, Heilmann,editor of the
ultra-chauvinistic Chemnitzer
Volksstimme and contributor to Parvus’s ultra-chauvinistic Glocke [1] (a “Social-Democrat”, of course, and an ardent partisan of
Social-Democratic “unity”), was compelled to acknowledge in the
press that the Centre, or “Kautkyism”, and the Zimmerwald
majority were one and the same thing.

This fact was definitely established at the end of 1916 and the
beginning of 1917. Although social-pacifism was condemned by the
Kienthal
Manifesto, [2] the whole Zimmerwald Right,
the entire Zimmerwald majority, sank to
social-pacifism: Kautsky and Co. in a series of utterances in
January and February 1917; Bourderon and Merrheim in France, who
cast their votes in unanimity with the
social-chauvinists for the pacifist resolutions of the Socialist
Party (December 1916) and of the Confédération
Générale du Travail (the national organisation of the
French trade unions, also in December 1916); Turati and Co. in
Italy, where the entire party took up a social-pacifist
position, while Turati himself, in a speech delivered on
December 17, 1916, “slipped” (not by accident, of course) into nationalist phrases whitewashing the imperialist war.

In January 1917, the chairman of the Zimmerwald and Kienthal
conferences, Robert Grimm, joined the social-chauvinists in his own party (Greulich, Pflüger, Gustav
Mümller and others) against the internationalists
in deed.

At two conferences of Zimmerwaldists from various
countries in January and February 1917, this equivocal,
double-faced behaviour of the Zimmerwald majority was formally
stigmatised by the Left internationalists of several countries:
by Munzenberg,secretary of the international youth organisation
and editor of the excellent internationalist publication Die
Jugendinternationale [3] ; by Zinoviev, representative of
the Central Committee of our Party; by K. Radek of the Polish
Social-Democratic Party (the “Regional Executive”), and by
Hartstein, a German Social-Democrat and member of the Spartacus
group.

Much is given to the Russian proletariat; nowhere in the world
has the working class yet succeeded in developing so much
revolutionary energy as in Russia. But to whom much is given, of
him much is required.

The Zimmerwald bog can no longer be tolerated. We must not, for
the sake of the Zimmerwald “Kautskyites”, continue the
semi-alliance with the chauvinist International of the
Plekhanovs and Scheidemanns. We must break with this
International immediately. We must remain in Zimmerwald only for
purposes of information.

It is we who must found, and right now, without delay, a new,
revolutionary, proletarian International, or rather, we must not
fear to acknowledge publicly that this new International is already established and operating.

This is the International of those “internationalists in deed”
whom I precisely listed above. They and they alone are
representatives of the revolutionary, internationalist mass, and
not their corrupters.

And if socialists of that type are few, let every
Russian worker ask himself whether there were many really
class-conscious revolutionaries in Russia on the eve of
the February-March revolution of 1917.

It is not a question of numbers, but of giving correct
expression to the ideas and policies of the truly revolutionary
proletariat. The thing is not to “proclaim” internationalism,
but to be able to be an internationalist in deed, even when
times are most trying.

Let us not deceive ourselves with hopes of agreements and
international congresses. As long as the imperialist war is on,
international intercourse is held in the iron vise of the
military dictatorship of the imperialist bourgeoisie. If even
the “republican” Milyukov, who is obliged to tolerate the
parallel government of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, did
not allow Fritz Platten, the Swiss socialist, secretary of
the party, an internationalist and participant in the Zimmerwald
and Kienthal conferences, to enter Russia in April 1917, in
spite of the fact that Platten has a Russian wife and was on his
way to visit his wife’s relatives, and in spite of the fact that
he had taken part in the revolution of 1905 in Riga, for which
he had been confined in a Russian prison, had given bail to the
tsarist government for his release and wished to recover that
bail—if the “republican” Milyukov could do such a
thing in April 1917 in Russia, one can judge what value can be
put on the promises and assurances, the phrases and declarations
of the bourgeoisie on the subject of peace without annexations,
and soon.

And the arrest of Trotsky by the British Government? And the
refusal to allow Martov to leave Switzerland, and the attempt to
lure him to Britain, where Trotsky’s fate awaits him?

Let us harbour no illusions. We must not deceive ourselves.

To “wait” for international congresses or conferences is simply
to betray internationalism, since it has been shown
that even from Stockholm neither socialists loyal to
internationalism nor even their letters are allowed to
come here, although this is quite possible and although a
ferocious military censorship exists.

Our Party must not “wait”, but must immediately found a
Third International. Hundreds of socialists imprisoned in
Germany and Britain will then heave a sigh of relief, thousands
and thousands of German workers who are now holding strikes and
demonstrations that are frightening that scoundrel and brigand,
Wilhelm, will learn from illegal leaflets of our
decision, of our fraternal confidence in Karl Liebknecht, and in
him alone, of our decision to fight “revolutionary
defencism” even now ; they will read this and be
strengthened in their revolutionary internationalism.

To whom much is given, of him much is required. No other country
in the world is as free as Russia is now . Let us make
use of this freedom, not to advocate support for the
bourgeoisie, or bourgeois “revolutionary defencism”, but in a
bold, honest, proletarian, Liebknecht way to found the Third
International, an International uncompromisingly hostile
both to the social-chauvinlst traitors and to the vacillating
“Centrists”.

18. After what has been said, there is no need to waste many
words explaining that the amalgamation of Social-Democrats
in Russia is out of the question.

It is better to remain with one friend only, like Liebknecht,
and that means remaining with the revolutionary
proletariat, than to entertain even for a moment any
thought of amalgamation with the party of the Organising
Committee, with Chkheidze and Tsereteli, who can tolerate a bloc
with Potresov in Rabochaya Gazeta, who voted for the
loan in the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers’
Deputies, [4] and who have sunk to “defencism”.

Let the dead bury their dead.

Whoever wants to help the waverers must first stop
wavering himself.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[2] This refers to the appeal “To the Peoples Suffering Ruination and
Death” adopted at the Second International Conference of the
Zimmerwaldists held on April 24-30, 1916 in Kienthal
(Switzerland).

[3] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[4] On April 7(20), 1917, the Executive Committee of the Petrograd
Soviet, by a majority of 21 votes against 14, adopted a
resolution in favour of supporting the so-called “Liberty Loan”
issued by the Provisional Government to finance the continuing
imperialist war. The Bolshevik members of the Executive
Committee opposed this loan, declaring that support of it was
“the worst form of ‘civil truce’\thinspace” and moved a resolution
containing a detailed statement of their position. Several
members of the E.C. not belonging to the Bolshevik group voted
with the Bolsheviks. The question was put before the plenary
meeting of the Soviet after a preliminary discussion in the
groups.

 | THE SITUATION WITHIN THE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL | | | WHAT SHOULD BE THE NAME OF OUR PARTY—ONE THAT WILL BE CORRECT SCIENTIFICALLY AND HELP TO CLARIFY THE MIND OF THE PROLETARIAT POLITICALLY? |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
------------------------------------------------------------


(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT SHOULD BE THE NAME OF OUR PARTY—ONE

THAT WILL BE CORRECT
SCIENTIFICALLY

AND HELP TO CLARIFY THE MIND

OF THE PROLETARIAT
POLITICALLY?
------------------------------------------------------------


19. I now come to the final point, the name of our Party. We
must call ourselves the Communist Party —just as
Marx and Engels called themselves.

We must repeat that we are Marxists and that we take as our
basis the Communist Manifesto, which has been
distorted and betrayed by the Social-Democrats on its two main
points: (1) the working men have no country: “defence of the fatherland”
in an imperialist war is a betrayal of socialism; and
(2) the Marxist doctrine of the state has been distorted by
the Second International.

The name “Social-Democracy” is scientifically incorrect, as Marx frequently pointed out, in particular, in the Critique
of the Gotha Programme in 1875, and as Engels re-affirmed in
a more popular form in
1894 [Engels, Preface
to Internationales aus dem Velkstaat (1871-1875)] . [1] From
capitalism mankind can pass directly only to socialism, i.e., to
the social ownership of the means of production and the
distribution of products according to the amount of work performed by each individual. Our Party looks farther ahead:
socialism must inevitably evolve gradually into communism, upon
the banner of which is inscribed the motto, “From each according
to his ability, to each according to his needs”.

That is my first argument.

Here is the second: the second part of the name of our Party
(Social- Democrats ) is also scientifically
incorrect. Democracy is a form of state, whereas we
Marxists are opposed to every kind of state.

The leaders of the Second International (1889-1914), Plekhanov,
Kautsky and their like, have vulgarised and distorted Marxism.

Marxism differs from anarchism in that it recognises the
need for a state for the purpose of the transition to
socialism; but (and here is where we differ from Kautsky and
Co.) not a state of the type of the usual
parliamentary bourgeois-democratic republic, but a state like
the Paris Commune of 1871 and the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies
of 1905 and 1917.

My third argument: living reality, the revolution,
has already actually established in our colmtry,
albeit in a weak and embryonic form, precisely this new type of
“state”, which is not a state in the proper sense of the word.

This is already a matter of the practical action of
the people, and not merely a theory of the leaders.

The state in the proper sense of the term is domination over the
people by contingents of armed men divorced from the people.

Our emergent, new state is also a state, for we too
need contingents of armed men, we too need the strictest order, and must ruthlessly crush by
force all attempts at either a tsarist or a Guchkov-bourgeois
counter-revolution.

But our emergent, new state is no longer a
state in the proper sense of the term, for in some parts of
Russia these contingents of armed men are the masses
themselves, the entire people, and not certain privileged
persons placed over the people, and divorced from the people,
and for all practical purposes undisplaceable.

We must look forward, and not backward to the usual bourgeois
type of democracy, which consolidated the rule of the
bourgeoisie with the aid of tho old, monarchist organs
of administration, the police, the army and the bureaucracy.

We must look forward to the emergent new democracy, which is
already ceasing to be a democracy, for democracy means the
domination of the people, and the armed people cannot dominate
themselves.

The term democracy is not only scientifically incorrect when
applied to a Communist Party; it has now, since March 1917,
simply become blinders put on the eyes of the
revolutionary people and preventing them from boldly
and freely, on their own initiative, building up the new: the
Soviets of Workers’, Peasants’, and all other Deputies, as the sole power in the “state” and as the harbinger of
the “withering away” of the state in every form.

My fourth argument: we must reckon with the actual situation in
which socialism finds itself internationally.

It is not what it was during the years 1871 to 1914, when Marx
and Engels knowingly put up with the inaccurate, opportunist
term “Social-Democracy”. For in those days, after the
defeat of the Paris Commune, history made slow organisational
and educational work the task of the day. Nothing else was
possible. The anarchists were then (as they are now)
fundamentally wrong not only theoretically, but also
economically and politically. The anarchists misjudged the
character of the times, for they failed to understand the world
situation: the worker of Britain corrupted by imperialist
profits, the Commune defeated in Paris, the recent (1871)
triumph of the bourgeois national movement in Germany, the
age-long sleep of semi-feudal Russia.

Marx and Engels gauged the times accurately; they understood the
international situation; they understood that the approach to
the beginning of the social revolution must be slow.

We, in our turn, must also understand the specific features and
tasks of the new era. Let us not imitate those sorry Marxists of
whom Marx said: “I have sown dragon’s teeth and harvested
fleas.” [2]

The objective inevitability of capitalism which grew into
imperialism brought about the imperialist war. The war has
brought mankind to the brink of a precipice, to the
brink of the destruction of civilisation, of the brutalisation and destruction of more millions, countless millions, of human
beings.

The only way out is through a proletarian revolution.

At the very moment when such a revolution is beginning, when it
is taking its first hesitant, groping steps, steps betraying too
great a confidence in the bourgeoisie, at such a moment the
majority (that is the truth, that is a fact) of the
“Social-Democratic” leaders, of the “Social-Democratic”
parliamentarians, of the “Social-Democratic” newspapers—and
these are precisely the organs that influence the
people—have deserted socialism, have betrayed socialism and have gone over to the side of
“their own” national bourgeoisie.

The people have been confused, led astray and deceived by these leaders.

And we shall aid and abet that deception if we retain the old
and out-of-date Party name, which is as decayed as the Second
International!

Granted that “many” workers understand Social-Democracy in an honest way; but it is time to learn how
to distinguish the subjective from the objective.

Subjectively, such Social-Democratic workers are most loyal
leaders of the proletarians.

Objectively, however, the world situation is such that the old
name of our Party makes it easier to fool the people
and impedes the onward march; for at every step, in every paper,
in every parliamentary group, the masses see leaders, i.e., people whose voices carry farthest and whose actions are
most conspicuous; yet they are all “would-be Social-Democrats”,
they are all “for unity” with the betrayers of socialism, with
the social-chauvinists; and they are all presenting for payment
the old bills issued by “Social-Democracy”. . . .

And what are the arguments against? . . . We’ll be confused with
the Anarchist-Communists, they say. . . .

Why are we not afraid of being confused with the
Social-Nationalists, the Social-Liberals, or the
Radical-Socialists, the foremost bourgeois party in the French
Republic and the most adroit in the bourgeois deception of the
people? . . . We are told: The people are used to it, the
workers have come to “love” their Social-Democratic
Party.

That is the only argument. But it is an argument that dismisses
the science of Marxism, the tasks of the morrow in the
revolution, the objective position of world socialism, the
shameful collapse of the Second International, and the harm done
to the practical cause by the packs of “would-be
Social-Democrats” who surround the proletarians.

It is an argument of routinism, an argument of inertia, an
argument of stagnation.

But we are out to rebuild the world. We are out to put an end to
the imperialist world war into which hundreds of millions of
people have been drawn and in which the interests of billions
and billions of capital are involved, a war which cannot end in
a truly democratic peace without the greatest proletarian
revolution in the history of mankind.

Yet we are afraid of our own selves. We are loth to cast off the
“dear old” soiled shirt. . . .

But it is time to cast off the soiled shirt and to put on clean
linen.

Petrograd, April 10, 1917


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[2] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

 | THE COLLAPSE OF THE ZIMMERWALD INTERNATIONAL.— THE NEED FOR FOUNDING A THIRD INTERNATIONAL | | | POSTSCRIPT |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
------------------------------------------------------------


(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


------------------------------------------------------------
POSTSCRIPT
------------------------------------------------------------


My pamphlet has become out of date owing to the general economic
disorganisation and the inefficiency of the St. Petersburg
presses. The pamphlet was written on April 10, 1917, today is
May 28, and it has not come out yet!

It was written as a draft platform to propagandise my
views before the All-Russia Conference of our
Party, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party of
Bolsheviks. The pamphlet was typed in several copies and handed
out to Party members before and during the Conference so that it
did its job in part. But the Conference took place from April 24
to April 29,1917, its resolutions have long since been published
(see supplement to Soldatskaya
Pravda No. 13 [6] ) and the attentive reader will have
noticed that my pamphlet often served as the original draft of
those resolutions.

It is left for me to express the hope that the pamphlet will
still be of some value because of its connection with those
resolutions and because it explains them, and to deal here with
two points.

I suggested on page 27 that
we remain in Zimmerwald only for purposes of
information. [1] The
Conference did not agree with me on this point, and I had to
vote against the resolution on the International. It is now
becoming obvious that the Conference made a mistake and that the
course taken by events will soon correct it. By remaining in
Zimmerwald we (even against our will) are helping delay the
creation of the Third International; we are indirectly hampering
its foundation, being burdened with the dead ballast of the
ideologically and politically dead Zimmerwald.

In the eyes of the working-class parties of the whole world,
our Party’s position is now such that it is our duty to found a Third International without delay. Today there is nobody but us to do it, and procrastination
can only do harm. If we remain in Zimmerwald for information only,
we shall have our hands freed to establish the new International
(and at the same time be able to use Zimmerwald should
circumstances make it possible).

Because of the mistake made by the Conference, we must now wait
passively, at least until July 5, 1917 (the date set for the
Zimmerwald Conference, provided it is not postponed again! It has already been postponed
once. . .).

The decision unanimously adopted by the Central Committee of our
Party after the Conference and published in Pravda No. 55, on May 12, has, however, gone half-way towards
correcting the mistake; it has been resolved that we shall walk
out of Zimmerwald if they decide to confer with
ministers. [2] I
express the hope that the other half of the mistake will be
speedily remedied, as soon as we convene the first international
conference of Lefts (the “third trend”, the “internationalists
in deed”, see above, pp. 23–25 [3] ).

The second point I must deal with is the formation of the “ coalition
cabinet ” on May 6,
1917. [7] On this point the pamphlet may seem to be particularly out of
date.

But actually on this of all points it is not out of date at
all. It is based wholly on the class analysis, a thing that the Mensheviks and
Narodniks, who have provided six ministers as hostages to
the
ten capitalist ministers, stand in deadly fear of. And it is
because the pamphlet is based wholly on a class analysis that it
is not out of date—the only change made by Tsereteli, Chernov
and Co . joining the cabinet was an insignificant one in the form of the agreement between the
Petrograd Soviet and the capitalist government, and I
deliberately stressed in my pamphlet ( on page 8 ) that “I am referring
not so much to the formal agreement as to
actual support” [4]

With each passing day it is becoming clearer that Tsereteli,
Chernov and Co. are nothing more than hostages to the
capitalists, that the “renewed” government is neither willing
nor able to carry out any of its abundant promises either in
foreign or domestic policies. Chernov, Tsereteli and Co. have
committed political suicide by turning into assistants of the
capitalists, into people who are actually strangling the
revolution; Kerensky has come so low as to use force against the
masses (cf. p. 9 of the pamphlet:
“Guchkov is still only threatening to employ violence against
the
mass” [5] but Kerensky had to carry out those
threats [8] ). Chernov, Tsereteli and Co. have
killed themselves and their parties—the Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries—politically. The people will
realise this more and more clearly as the days go
by.

The coalition cabinet is only a passing moment in the
development of the fundamental class contradictions of our
revolution briefly analysed in the pamphlet. This situation
cannot last long—we must either go backward to
counter-revolution all along the line or forward to the transfer
of state power to other classes. At a time of revolution, when
the imperialist world war is in progress, we cannot stand
still.

N. Lenin

St. Petersburg, May 28, 1917


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] [ PLACEHOLDER.] — Ed .

[2] [ PLACEHOLDER.] — Ed .

[3] [ PLACEHOLDER.] — Ed .

[4] [ PLACEHOLDER.] — Ed .

[5] [ PLACEHOLDER.] — Ed .

[6] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[7] [ PLACEHOLDER.]

[8] Lenin is referring to the order by War Minister Kerensky published on
May 11 (24), 1917, containing a “Declaration of the Rights of
the Soldier”, in which there was a point allowing a superior
officer to use military force in cases of insubordination in the
field. This point was aimed against soldiers and officers who
refused to go into the attack.  Simultaneously with the
promulgation of this order Kerensky started to disband regiments
and prosecute officers and soldiers guilty of ’inciting to
insubordination’.

 | WHAT SHOULD BE THE NAME OF OUR PARTY—ONE THAT WILL BE CORRECT SCIENTIFICALLY AND HELP TO CLARIFY THE MIND OF THE PROLETARIAT POLITICALLY? | | |  |

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